Hearing Set in Rocky De La Fuente Virginia Ballot Access Case

Posted on by January 27, 2017
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A U.S. District Court in Virginia will hear De La Fuente v Alcorn on February 17, Friday, at 10 a.m. The issue is the law that requires candidates for presidential elector to reveal their full Social Security number before an independent presidential petition may begin to circulate. Part of the reason for this requirement is that the Virginia Constitution requires voters to reveal their full social security number just in order to register to vote. So many Virginia official election forms require the full SSN for various other purposes, including declarations of candidacy. De La Fuente argues that many potential presidential elector candidates for him refused to run because they didn’t want to reveal their full SSN.

A bill is pending in the legislature that would begin the process of changing the state constitution, to delete the requirement that voter registration forms show the full SSN. It is HJR 552, by Delegate James LeMunyon (R-Herndon).

No other state constitution goes into such detail about what must be on a voter registration application.

Nebraska Bill to Expand Methods for Party to Remain Ballot-Qualified

Posted on by January 27, 2017
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Under current Nebraska law, a party remains ballot-qualified if it polled 5% for any statewide race at either of the last two elections. Senator Laura Ebke, a Libertarian, has introduced LB 34. It retains the existing law, but says another method for a party to retain qualified status is to have at least 10,000 registered members. At the October 2016 tally the Libertarian Party had 10,935 registered members.

The bill does not appear to allow a group that is not now unqualified to qualify via a registration drive, although that is not clear. Nebraska voter registration forms do not list a blank line in the question about the applicant’s choice of party. There are only checkboxes, and only the qualified parties may have a checkbox. When a party goes off the ballot in Nebraska, all its members are converted to independents. So, without a change in the voter registration form, the option of having 10,000 members is not available to unqualified parties.

Kentucky Bills to Move Election of Statewide Executive Officers from Odd Years to Presidential Years

Posted on by January 27, 2017
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Kentucky legislators in each house have introduced bills to move the elections for Governor and the other statewide executive positions from the odd year prior to a presidential election year, to presidential election years. The bills are SB 52 by Senator Christian McDaniel, and HB 81 by Representative Kenny Imes. Both are Republicans.

If the bills pass, the voters would be asked to approve the change, because the current schedule is in the Kentucky Constitution. Currently, Kentucky is one of five states that elects its Governor in odd years. The others are New Jersey and Virginia (both of which have gubernatorial elections in 2017), and Mississippi and Louisiana (which, along with Kentucky, last elected a Governor in 2015).

If the bill passes, the statewide officers elected in 2019 would have five-year terms, and then 2024 would be the first presidential election year with a gubernatorial election. Kentucky already elects all its state legislators in even years, so the change would save money for election administrators, because they wouldn’t need statewide state elections every year, as is currently the case.